


Stained Glass Heart

by Sengachi



Series: Lonely Wasteland [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 03:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14155434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sengachi/pseuds/Sengachi
Summary: This is part of a larger work that I don't have time to write right now, but this scene demanded to be written anyway. It's lacking some of the context that would be present in the larger story, but I'm posting it as is anyway.If you're looking for something connected to the greater Fallout setting, this probably isn't what you're looking for. If you want to read some short character drama, this is for you.





	Stained Glass Heart

****Coraline stands in the center aisle of the church, one hand brushing the pew next to her and the thumb of her other hand tucked under her rifle strap. The evening sky is cloudless outside and sunlight pours in through the stained glass windows. The windows are patternless jumble, assembled from what mismatched pieces of glass could be found in the post-war wastelands.

The light that washes through the windows lights the church with a sea of colors and Coraline feels …

She doesn’t know what she feels.

The sniper stands in the church. She ought to be getting back. The others will be waiting for her to get back to start dinner.  

She doesn’t move.

Time passes and the light drifts across the church. Coraline waits and notices the passage of a shattered patchwork of light across her hand and the pew beneath it. She swallows. This is nice. The church is beautiful. Standing amidst the light she feels like this is how the whole world ought to be.

The buzz and hiss of an antigravity unit breaks the silence of the church as the Curator drifts into the church. Their metal body hovers to a stop behind Coraline just outside her personal space, thin arms clutching at the air.

“Ma’am? You’ve been in here for sometime. May I be of assistance?”

The sniper looks over the Curator. Not a combat model. The robot’s arms can be swapped out for tools meant to perform fine construction and repair work, including a couple saw-tipped limbs which could probably do some damage. But it is not meant to fight. It is a fragile and delicate thing unsuited for the art of war.

She does have a question for the robot.

“Why rebuild this?” The sniper looks at the fragile, delicate windows the Curator rebuilt after the bombs fell. She touches the carefully maintained pews. She feels out the hours of work involved and weighs the materials involved. Why this, she asks? Why dedicate centuries to this?

There is a wistful grin in the Curator’s synthesized voice. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

Coraline looks away from the windows and back to the light. It is. It’s the most beautiful thing Coraline has ever seen.

“Why-” she asks. Her voice breaks and she tries again. “Why is this worth it?”

“Why is beauty worth it?”

Coraline almost interrupts. Says that isn’t what she was asking.

But it was.

The Curator continues. “Beauty is worth it because the world is less without it. Look. Look! See how the western window catches the setting sun? It’s beautiful! Doesn’t it make your heart swell?! That is beauty at work, and the world would be poorer for its absence. What other reason do we need?”

Something hurts in Coraline’s chest.

The Curator floats beside Coraline and somehow the noise of her anti-gravity seems quieter. As if the light is a sound drowning out all else. Or maybe that’s just the sound of her heart.

The woman from the Vault struggles to find her voice. “Beauty- I- this- it-”

She swallows. “I’m broken. I’ve always been broken. I don’t ... feel things like people are supposed to. When Anne’s appendix almost burst and Mom was crying I didn’t understand any of it. Anne hadn’t been around when I was younger. Why was it so important if she wasn’t going to be around in the future?”

The words are pouring out in a flood that can’t be stopped. “I never felt any of it! When Cynthia and Gregory got married everyone was so happy and I didn’t care! I was bored and I didn’t like the crowd but everybody else was happy and I knew I was supposed to be happy too and I _wasn’t_.”

“Do you know how long it took me to realize that ‘I’m so happy for you’ is more than just a phrase? That people actually meant it? That it wasn’t just words?” Tears are pouring down Coraline’s face and she doesn’t know where any of this is going or where it will end. “Everyone else cares and feels for each other and I want everyone to be safe and happy but it doesn’t matter because I don’t _feel_ it. I’m just this empty fucking shell that’s been haunting our Vault since I was born.”

She gulps down ragged breaths of air.

“It _hurts_.”

A metal arm comes to rest on Coraline’s back. “May I do something for you?”

Coraline sobs and she doesn’t know what that means but the Curator does. The Curator rises into the air, floating in the center of the church amid the last fading colors shining through the stained glass windows. And the Curator begins to sing.

The music is prerecorded. Something from before the war, calling across a hundred years and more. It is a dozen voices in chorus, singing to fill the church with song until there is no room left for the song to go but inside of the crying lonely girl. The song swells with all the power its chorus can bring to bear. And it is triumphant. There is sorrow in the song but the singers are not sad. Their voices are raised to the sky and they say “I am still here. I am here, I am alive, and that is enough. Can you hear me? I am still here!”

The music lances straight to the heart of Coraline and she crumples to her knees. She is crying and crying and crying and then she is screaming, howling into the stained glass church and its music. Beauty and love have never been for her and she can’t stand it. This isn’t meant for cold empty monsters like her.

Coraline throws back her head and _screams_. She’s never made this much noise in her life and still she can barely hear herself over the music in her ears. Or maybe that’s just the sound of her heart.

The music fades slowly, one singer after the other fading out, until only one remains. Their lone voice climbs higher, and higher still, one last defiant note of grace and then that last voice too, takes its leave.

Coraline weeps.

The Curator floats gently down, moving carefully so as not to disturb Coraline’s tears.

They speak gently. “I don’t know what moves you child. But whatever is missing inside of you, it is not the ability to feel. Whatever you feel for, whatever you care about, you clearly _can_ care. As surely as beauty can move anyone, it moves you.”

The Curator lays a metal arm on Coraline’s back once more. “If I may give a word of advice?”

Coraline nods, desperately wiping her tears. She pushes herself to her feet and faces the Custodian.

“Seek beauty. Many paths in life lead to dark places. But I have never known someone’s life to be lessened by following moments of grace.”

Coraline nods again, still scrubbing at her eyes. “Can I,” she asks, “have a copy of that recording?”

“Of course.”

The girl from the Vault hiccups, and just like that she is crying all over again.

 

\---

 

Pressed against the outside wall of the church Lee stays quiet. Coraline is very, very late to dinner. But this isn’t his moment to interrupt. Though, as always whenever he does something for his ex’s sake, Lee wonders if it matters. If there’s any more point in feeling compassion for the Expedition’s sociopathic ghost than there is feeling compassion for a stone.

This time however, the thought feels uncharitable.

Lee heads back without Coraline. The Expedition will suffer a late dinner tonight. That’s alright.

As Lee heads back, he thinks. He has seen the looks Abby has been giving Coraline. He’s been intending to talk to her, tell her gently that there’s simply no love to be found in Coraline. And he’s been putting the talk off, if he’s honest with himself. It’s not a conversation he wants to have. Coraline’s secret isn’t truly his to give and frankly he doesn’t expect the talk to go over well with Abby.

But now he finds himself putting off the talk for a different reason. What he saw in that church is not something he has ever seen in Coraline before. He doesn’t know if it’s something new inside of Coraline or if he was simply never the right person to bring it out of her, but …

Well. But.

 

\---

 

Madrigal quips with Martin over the fire and Abby laughs. She tilts her head back with her gold hair tumbling about her face and laughs.

Coraline doesn’t feel anything for Abby’s joy. There’s no reciprocal joy in her, never has and never will. But she sees the warmth in Abby. She sees Abby’s love for her friends and the way Abby spreads her joy without reservation. And Coraline thinks, _beautiful._

Coraline doesn’t feel anything for Madrigal and Martin’s camaraderie either. Nothing in her heart stirs to see them happy. She wouldn’t feel anything if they were hurt either. But, she thinks - this time there is a but - their campfire would be less without them. And she’ll protect them, inborn feelings or not. There’s a kernel of something more in that thought, but today has already been a long day, and it will wait to be examined.  

For now, Coraline is content to take her quiet place in the circle around the fire and marvel at all that she _can_ feel.

_Beautiful_ , she thinks, following sparks as they trail into the starry sky.

_Beautiful,_ she thinks, prodding at the feelings inside herself.

_Beautiful_ , she thinks, watching the woman across the fire bring joy to life with her lungs and her lips and her eyes.

Coraline has never been able to care for another’s joy. But if she chooses to seek beauty in someone’s joy, she wonders, maybe that will do. Maybe that will be enough. Enough for what, she does not voice even in her own thoughts. But she watches Abby while she wonders. And when Abby laughs Coraline smiles.


End file.
